Social darwinism and the holocaust

Hitler believed humans were animals to whom the genetics laws, learned from livestock breeding, could be applied.

When American forces liberated concentration camps at the end of World War Two they captured distressing footage that was later used in an official video report.

Most Jews also were convinced that Germany was now a safe harbour for them.

But he was certainly the principal architect of eugenics, and Hitler was certainly obsessed with the idea. Conclusion Firmly convinced that Darwinian evolution was true, Hitler saw himself as the modern saviour of mankind. Tell us what you need to have done now! Watch the report on HistoryHit.

At the time that Spencer began to promote Social Darwinism, the technology, economy, and government of the "White European" was advanced in comparison to that of other cultures. If "survival of the fittest" or "kill or be killed" cannot apply in what we define as "decent society," then, which is wrong, society or evolution?

Even mental patients were included later, in part because it was then believed that heredity had a major influence on mental illness or they possibly had some Jewish or other non-Aryan blood in themand consequently had to be destroyed.

The idea is that the evolutionary processes in natural history have parallels in social history, that their same rules apply.

The Lead versus Follow principle is a principle that explains why, through a group mindset, people are more likely to follow a leader because of pressure rather than actual like thinking. Then we call it new life.

What is your response? Certainly, we should be charitable and help those in need. And, of course, it was organized religion which did this and thus stood in the way of scientific and social progress.

Haeckel was at the center of this fight and garnered much support from: The well documented influence of Darwinism on the Holocaust has been greatly downplayed by the mass media.

If Darwinism is true, Hitler was our saviour and we have crucified him. They were not considered persons in the sight of the German government. If the Nazi party had fully embraced and consistently acted on the belief that all humans were descendants of Adam and Eve and equal before the creator God, as taught in both the Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures, the holocaust would never have occurred.

Darwin, unlike Hobbes, believed that this struggle for natural resources allowed individuals with certain physical and mental traits to succeed more frequently than others, and that these traits accumulated in the population over time, which under certain conditions could lead to the descendants being so different that they would be defined as a new species.

When Chiang Kai-shek started the New Life movement inhe. The Theory of Natural Selection as expressed by Social Darwinists is a theory that attempts to protect a selective group of people above all others.

A law which brought man out of the jungle and made him king of beasts cannot be altogether bad. Furthermore, Nazi and Christian concepts are incompatible because Christianity is built: They received wide support throughout the German government, and were an important influence in German policy.

Watch Now Historical opinion is mixed as to how formative social Darwinist principles were to Nazi ideology. For Hitler this race of people was deemed to be pure and in some way better than all others.

Paraphrasing the words of Hitler, those who ignore the lessons of history are condemned to repeat it.The Role of Darwinism in Nazi Racial Thought Richard Weikart Historians disagree about whether Nazis embraced Darwinian evolution.

By examining Hitler’s ideology, the official biology curriculum, the writings of Nazi anthropologists, and Nazi periodicals, we find that Nazi racial theorists did indeed embrace human and racial evolution.

Furthermore, the primary reason that Nazism reached to the extent of the holocaust was the widespread acceptance of Social Darwinism by the scientific and academic community. 1, 8, 9, 10 The very heart of Darwinism is the belief that evolution proceeds by the differential survival of the fittest or superior individuals.

Social Darwinism played a role in the Holocaust through the Theory of Natural Selection and the lead versus follow principle; both allowed Hitler to believe the Aryans as the “Master” race and the need to exterminate all other peoples, in particular the Jews. Finally, the actual term ‘Social Darwinism’ was originally coined by Malthus, who is better remembered for his iron rule of nature.

Social Darwinism in action. The most infamous instance of Social Darwinism in action is in the genocidal policies of the Nazi German Government in the s and 40s. Social Darwinism is an application of the theory of natural selection to social, political, and economic issues.

In its simplest form, Social Darwinism follows the mantra of "the strong survive," including human issues. The term social Darwinism is used to refer to various ways of thinking and theories that emerged in the second half of the 19th century and tried to apply the evolutionary concept of natural selection to human society.

The term itself emerged in the s, and it gained widespread currency when used after by opponents of these ways of thinking.